Early Photography of China Collection: A highly important collection in development.. Various places, 1850s-1930s

The most valuable collection of early China photography in private hands, the Early Photography of China Collection includes the greatest masterworks of China photography by the foremost photographers working in China in the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the 20th century. The collection has been assembled over the course of many years, and we continue to expand and refine it as worthy photographs and archives become available. This collection, unrivaled in quality and extent in private hands, provides a unique opportunity to own one of the greatest collections of Chinese photography extant. We are eager to acquire important China photographs, from individual objects to albums and collections. We invite you to contact us.

Collection in development

Her personal archive of approximately 350 photographs. [Hampstead and elsewhere], 1858-1864

This tremendous discovery is the extensive photographic archive of the little-known Victorian photographer Emma Frances Johnston. This is apparently the earliest comprehensive archive of a female photographer in private hands. Beginning around 1858, Johnston made this wonderful series of portraits of her friends and extended family comprising the intellectual and social world of nineteenth- century Hampstead in London.

$245,000

Ambrotype Portrait of John D. Rockefeller. Cleveland, Ohio: Wiliam C. North, c. 1857-1858

This famous portrait of John D. Rockefeller at age 18 is the earliest known photograph of the greatest titan of American business and industry.

$150,000

An extraordinary collection of photographs of Central Park by its first official photographer. New York, 1862

Pioneering photographs of Central Park. One of the earliest photographers to work in New York

$135,000

Portrait of Abraham Lincoln with his son Tad. Washington, February 5, 1865

Perhaps the most delightful of the Lincoln family photographs, this portrait shows an impish Tad leaning on a table as his seemingly bemused father sits on Gardner’s studio chair. Thomas “Tad” Lincoln was the youngest of the Lincoln boys.

$65,000

Profile bust portrait of Charles Darwin, signed by Cameron. London: Colnaghi, 1868

The great Darwin portrait, Julia Margaret Cameron’s 1868 profile of Darwin is probably the most famous photograph of a 19th-century scientist. Darwin remarked, “I like this photograph very much better than any other which has been taken of me.”

$60,000

The Original Big Tree, 32 feet diameter. Charles Weed, 1864

Mammoth albumen print (15 ½ x 20 in.), mounted.

$37,500

Original glass plate interpositive prepared by Curtis for the printing of The North American Indian. Curtis, 1924

This is a splendid original glass plate made for Edward Curtis’s The North American Indian, the greatest photographic work on Native Americans. Curtis, one of the greatest American artists of his era, was the most celebrated photographer of North American Indians.

$35,000

The Temple Mount, Jerusalem. Jerusalem, 1857

This landmark two-part view of the Temple Mount is one of the very earliest multi-part panoramic photographs of Jerusalem.

$32,000

Sentinel Rock, 3270 Feet High. San Francisco, 1864

This spectacular view shows Sentinel Rock towering above a rider on horseback in a well-lit clearing.

$27,500